An AirAsia Airbus 320-200 airplane carrying total 162 passengers and crew from Indonesia to Singapore has gone missing on Sunday morning.
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AirAsia Indonesia confirmed that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24hrs this morning. Reports says the airplane asked for an unusual route before it lost contact.
The aircraft Airbus A320-200 has the registration number PK-AXC.
There were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.
The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours
There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.
Nationalities of passengers:
1 Singapore
1 Malaysia
3 South Korea
1 United Kingdom
149 Indonesia
Nationalities of crew:
1 France
6 Indonesia
AirAsia said, search and rescue operations are in progress and it is cooperating fully and assisting the rescue service.
The search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).
The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.
Major portion of the flight route is over ocean, making search and rescue operations difficult.
AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.
